What's Wrong With Wales?
What’s wrong with Wales? We have to ask the question because we feel there is something fundamentally wrong in Wales.
We used to be proud to say, “We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside, we’ll keep a welcome in the vale.” It was a popular song in its day, written in the 1940’s, and sung by many over the years, including the late Harry Secombe, a popular Welsh comedian, actor, singer and television presenter. But the maps attached here show that things could be very different in our hills and valleys today.
You might not be so surprised at the first map. It’s a map showing those faith communities who are registered with ‘The Welcome Directory,’ indicating their willingness to welcome people leaving prison. The goal of the Welcome Directory is “to help faith communities become places where people who leave prison find acceptance.”[1] You would think that faith communities and the church would be places where everyone would be accepted and welcome. Indeed, there are 313 registered communities across the UK. However, there are only 21 in Wales. And it’s striking, when you look at the map. Lots of locations around London and the south-east, as perhaps you might expect, but North and Mid-Wales are barren.
Of course, you do find that there are clusters around prisons, and there are only two main prisons in Wales – Wrexham and Cardiff. However, crime is committed everywhere, and prisoners who previously lived in Wales are returned to Wales upon release. Will they find a welcome in the hillside? Will they find a welcome in their local churches? We’re not so sure, looking at this map.
Now, we understand that welcoming ex-prisoners is a challenge for many. But what about other folks, who aren’t returning home from a spell in prison, but are struggling in their own homes during this economic climate? Those who are struggling to heat their homes – are they welcome?
The Warm Welcome Campaign has a mission “to support organisations to open their doors and provide a warm welcome for those struggling to heat their homes this winter.”[2] The second map shows over 3,000 organisations who have registered to do just that, to open up free, welcoming spaces for the public across the UK.
Surely, Wales is willing to provide welcome space for those struggling to keep their homes warm this winter. The second map shows a different story.
Whilst there is a cluster of welcome spaces in the south-east, the picture across the rest of Wales is, again, sadly bleak. Just a handful across the south-west, one only in mid-Wales, and a handful again across the whole of North Wales.
What’s wrong with Wales?
Why are we not welcoming?
The Bible clearly tells us:
“Be hospitable to one another without complaint.”
1 Peter 4:9 (AMP)
If we look up the word ‘hospitable’ in the Cambridge Dictionary, it is described as “friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors.”[3] Friendly and welcoming. Surely, if we were hospitable, friendly and welcoming, we should be listed on a Welcome Directory, and we might even be listed on a directory of warm welcome spaces?
What’s wrong with Wales? Clearly, we are not keeping a welcome in the hillsides or a welcome in the valleys. Clearly, there is something wrong. Surely, we need to do something to change this.
We’d like to challenge you, if you are in Wales. We’d like to challenge you to change. Take this message to your church. Share this message with your family, church family, friends, colleagues, and anyone else you can think of. Challenge those who can make a difference to be hospitable, to be welcoming, to bring a welcome back to the hillsides and to the valleys of Wales.
Let’s do this in the name of Jesus. Who knows? When we do, we might even spark a revival?
[1] https://www.welcomedirectory.org.uk/
[2] https://www.warmwelcome.uk/
[3] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hospitable
